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Abstract
Aim To gain a better understanding of the types of patients referred to urgent referral clinics and how they are managed. Using this information will help identify any local management gaps, and help target any new guidelines to be developed. It will also help identify any learning needs so that GPs can manage these patients more confidently.
Method Referrals to the clinic are taken by the on-call paediatric consultant discussing with the GP making the referral. Therefore the patients referred to the clinic should be appropriate as they have been screened by a paediatric consultant, making the clinic data more robust. 4 months of clinic data in 2015 was retrospectively reviewed using their clinic letter and clinical notes.
Results 83 patients attended an urgent referral clinic from January to April 2015.
The biggest age group seen at the clinic were under 1 year of age, a total of 20(24%)
The most common presentations to these clinics were headaches 9(11%), followed by joints pains 7(8%), faltering growth 7(8%), and patients with a rash 7(8%)
Conclusions It is often difficult for GPs to decide how to best manage patients that fall between immediate (A&E) and routine (outpatient) care. Urgent referral clinics help to plug this gap, this project has helped identify the demographic data of patients referred to urgent referral clinics, the type of patients that present to these clinics, the types of tests done in these clinics, and the outcome following attending these clinics.
The data has shown a potential learning opportunity, as almost half of referrals to the clinic result in a discharge. The data will help aid in developing future clinical pathways where there are possible local management gaps, as well as help identify future learning and educational aids to help GPs manage these patients.
31 (37%) patients had one or more investigations during the clinic. Of those that had an investigation, the most common was a blood test 40%(28 patients), followed by imaging 31%(22 patients)
45% (46 patients) were discharged back to primary care. 38%(38 patients) were followed up in an outpatient clinic